Which to use
“bolted” and “boned” are a confusable English pair: similar on the page, but distinct in meaning, check the gloss before you choose.
- #20,857
- “bolted” frequency rank
- #33,541
- “boned” frequency rank
- 54398
- confusion score
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Feature | bolted | boned |
|---|---|---|
| Definition | simple past and past participle of bolt | simple past and past participle of bone |
Where the eye mixes bolted and boned
Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 4 letters in sequence. bolted runs 6 letters (CVCCVC) against boned's 5 (CVCVC) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.
Why the eye confuses bolted with boned
A purely visual mix-up. bolted (/ˈbəʊltɪd/) and boned (/bəʊnd/) are said differently, so reading them aloud is the quickest way to catch the wrong one. On the page they stay close: they differ by 1 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 54398, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.
bolted is recorded at frequency rank #20,857, classified as averb, pronounced /ˈbəʊltɪd/. boned is at rank #33,541, tagged as averb, pronounced /bəʊnd/.
Glosses for this pair are partially populated in our dataset, but the full side-by-side definitions above should still guide you to the right choice.
With a confusion score of 54398, this pair ranks #141,383 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.
Orthographic DNA of bolted vs boned
Shared letters: bdeo. Private to "bolted": lt. Private to "boned": n.
"bolted" · 6 letters · shape CVCCVC · "boned" · 5 letters · shape CVCVC
Known mistypes of this pair
Frequently Asked Questions
Is swapping "bolted" for "boned" ever safe?
Frequency check: "bolted" vs "boned" - which ranks higher?
What to do next
Eye-level mix-up between "bolted" and "boned" is sorted above. Next: full entries or other pairs that share a letter shape.
- Full dictionary entry for "bolted" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
- Full dictionary entry for "boned" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
- This pair ranks #141,383 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
- "bolted" and "boned" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "boned vs bronzed". Nearby pair
- Recorded mistypes exist for at least one side of this pair, useful when a spell-checker or OCR lands on the wrong form. See mistypes
Confusion rank #141,383 of 530,003 scored English pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.